Leadership Development Ministry

I am currently residing in New Zealand, but originally came from South Africa. Coming from a background where church and state was intertwined, to a country where these two entities are separated made it difficult to settle at first. My other challenge was to get used to communicating about God and Christianity in English. It sounds trivial, but to go from your mother language to a foreign language, especially combined with something as emotional and culturally ingrained as one’s faith, is not easy.

I have grown up as a Christian and in the church. This was fully supported by my whole family. In my later years, my faith has grown as I grew into my own worldview. I have realized that a life without God, is not a life worth living. I work in a high stress environment and need my faith to sustain me on a daily basis. It is through working in a secular country and a secular work environment, that I have come to the conclusion that I need to focus more on living a life walking with God and that I can through this, develop leaders by making use of a Christian foundation. This has been highly successful as a face-to-face endeavor as well as an online movement.

I realized I needed more than just my current Bible knowledge to do this work effectively. I do hold a PhD in Education, but needed what CLI is offering to support my teaching ministry.

Approaching my studies through CLI allows me to carry on with my current position as a High School Principal as well as my other passions of Leadership Development. I see myself at the level of Pastor in my ministry functions. Interacting with people and sharing the word of God with them, as well as how this foundation can support leadership in any workplace, is very satisfying and I would like to build this out further. A Scholarship at CLI will make it possible for me to enhance this ministry and will allow me to serve as a bi-vocational pastor.

As stated before, I work in a secular environment (underpinned by law) and have found that Christians who are in the same situation need more support. This environment makes it difficult to operate within, especially if you do not want to lose your Christian identity. My vision is to enhance my Leadership Development teaching by building in on a foundation of Christianity. I passionately believe that the world will be a better place if more leaders and managers approach their tasks from a Christian perspective. I am fully supported in this endeavor by my wife.